It's Official: OLTL Actors to Return to GH In May

Three of One Life to Live‘s finest are once again General Hospital-bound — albeit as completely different characters.

As first rumored back in March, suds vets Roger Howarth, Michael Easton and Kristen Alderson — each of whom brought their OLTL alter egos to GH following the former’s swan song — are slated toreturn to ABC’s sole surviving soap on May 10. The catch: The trio will no longer be portraying Llanview’s Todd Manning, John McBain and Starr Manning, respectively.

“Exciting storylines full of mystery and intrigue are planned to usher in the return of these actors that will lead to the answer of one of the most asked questions in Port Charles,” an ABC spokesperson said Thursday in a statement.

Prospect Park, the production company behind the upcoming online versions of OLTL and All My Children, initially proposed sharing the three characters with ABC and General Hospital, as they were said to be “essential” to the revival’s “production efforts, and a large reason [the company] licensed the program.” An agreement, however, was never successfully reached. Howarth, for his part, is set to reprise his role as Todd for several weeks at the start of OLTL‘s relaunch, which begins April 29 on both iTunes and Hulu.

Who would you like to see the One Lifers-turned-newish GHers play this time around? Hit the comments!

I totally disagree with all the negative comments. I am so glad that Prospect Park brought back OLTL and my beloved Trevor, that I’ll watch it no matter what. And GH also, with Ron Carlivati writing, it has never been better. Thank you PP.

I hate that they changed their characters. I have watched both shows for years and I can only see them as Todd, Star, John. How do u expect us to believe that they are other people. So what about John mcbain? He looked just like Steven Tyler, what are they going to say about that ?
All of a sudden, those characters didn’t exist. Todd and Carly were dynamic together. Give us back our original characters. I hate this story line. Now the show is ruined.

I have been an ABC soap fan on & off for over 40 years…thanks mom. Over that time I have seen it all…bad re-casts…storylines that have no basis in reality….and probably wouldn’t be watching anymore if not for the fact that my DVR makes it convenient. After reading most of the comments I think I now understand what happened with the OLTL characters on GH. But here’s how I feel. Yes…soap characters get re-cast all the time and not only do you adjust but sometimes the re-cast turns out to be more popular than the original…Carly on GH for instance. However, there are some beloved characters that shouldn’t be touched. Seeing KA playing a character other than Starr is hard to watch. And although they recast Todd on OLTL years ago…Roger was & always will be Todd to me. It’s like Sonny playing someone other than Sonny…..too many years as one character. I hate that the 3 actors are back as different characters…sounds like the majority of fans feel the same way…it’s a shame. Wonder if ABC reads these comments.

Do the GH producers think their viewers are mindless idiots? Really. Starr as Kiki was badhelping enough butto Manning as Franco! GH is doing its best to lose fans who, like myself, have been loyal for many years. But this may be the insult to viewer intelligence that makes Y&R be the only soap worth my while spending time watching. I had such hope and joy watching as they brought back “original” stars but this slap in the face is just to much!!

Absolutely horrible, if you wanted to bring back charectors then get new actors to portray them. I have been watching this show as long as I can remember, and never seen something so dumb. It makes it very confusing, especially if you miss any episodes.

Every time I look at the actors, I see the old characters vs. the new ones. I cannot get past it especially bringing back an actor to play the role of a character who played himself (Franco). I have a hard enough time accepting the new Lulu (she is doing a good job but the the former Lulu had been on so long) and they have now introduced these 3 new characters who I don’t think have particularly interesting story lines and likable characters. I was having some much fun watching during the nurse’s ball and watching the guest appearances from favorite former actors (except missed Jason, Sean and Tiffany) that it makes it so much more disappointing these days to see where the show is headed.

They would have had better luck bringing back James Franco but
this is the way the shows headed, oh well. I refuse to watch it anymore as I don’t
buy any of them as the new characters, I think the new Lulu should have been
Lauren Franco. Huge misstep here.

Don’t get me wrong I love Roger Howarth…. just not as Franco. There are inherent problems with GH bringing this character (Franco) back permanently and I get that GH was between a rock and a hard place with regard to the Character property issues between OLTL, and GH and back again.

However, due to the nature of Franco’s character being the murdering psychopath that he is, there is no redeeming him.

It would have been better to have brought back Roger Howarth as one of the Jerome family, or even Eric Quartermaine Jr. (Jimmy Lee Holt’s son).

Before OLTL came back, there was a growing fan base for a Carly and Todd match up, if Howarth had been brought back as anyone else, he could have gotten involved with Carly and no one would have batted an eyelash at it. Yet the stomach turns at the thought of Carly having anything remotely to do with Franco.

In spite of the lame videos the character Franco showed to his guests on the Haunted Star in the last few episodes that were staged to clear him of blame for his monstrous behavior, or the trite apologies he was spewing to his “guests”, Franco is still responsible for what happened to Michael Corinthos in the prison and no mother worth her title would ever even want to be in the same room with such a monster much less get romantically involved with him.

Also….when it comes to Franco, to use a quote from the Highlander….”There can be only one” and that is James Franco.

I’M A GREAT FAN OF GENERAL HOSPITAL BUT THE NEW LULU DOESN’T FIT IN WITH DANTE, AND TODD ISN’T BELIEVABLE AS FRANCO. AND PLEASE LET STARR GO BACK TO HER ORIGINAL ROLE, IT SEEMS LIKE THE STORYLINE IS FALLING APART.SO DISAPPOINTED!

It was great when you brought Todd and Starr over to GH and now suddenly they are back as two totally different people.? Stupid!! You really had something good when you brought them over as their OLTL characters. I was excited to see some of their best characters join GH. Now you want us to believe this whole Franco garbage?! I never liked that Franco story line and was so glad it was over with and now you bring it back like this? Bad bad move. I have watched GH for over 33 years. This is the worst move ever. I will be very sad to see the show end like the others. I can’t figure out if Michael hates Kiki because she looks like his ex Starr or are we supposed to pretend they don’t look anything alike? This is a confusing, and very bad move.

Well, I was so happy to find this post. I have watched GH since 1970 and have followed it for these 43 years. This weird character change is just not working for me at all. Kiki? Franco? What the heck. It is distracting and just plain stupid. I am watching it right now and it is Todd and Starr and they are them!! Makes this old lady confused and not wanting to watch it. AND McBain? I loved him.. and he is now some strange doctor working with Sam? I keep wondering why Sam does not trust McBain like the old days. I was so sad when OLTL was taken away but have adjusted to having my afternoon having an extra hour to stay away from the TV. Looks like GH is now gone for me too.. WOO HOO!!! Free weekday afternoons to go out and have some fun!! Let’s go shopping everybody instead of watch TV!!! GH producers, you sure screwed this up big time!!! See ya!!

I couldn’t agree more. I got hooked on GH when I was 10 because my mother watched it, and then of course I began watching OLTL, All My Children, and Ryan’s Hope when it was on. This NONSENSE with all these twins who are somehow other people is INSANE. Either put together a true story line or send GH to the Internet the way the others went. For crying out loud, how stupid do you think your viewers are?

I missed the whole Jon McBain, Todd and Star storyline exit from Port Charles. Can anyone bring me up to speed as to what actually happened to their characters. I only started watching again when they transitioned to the GH cast. Now, I am home and started watching again, and low and behold all three are different characters. Confused doesn’t even begin to describe it. WOW!

Ok, let’s recap, shall we? Starr received an important call from Langston prompting her to fly to LA but Todd shows up at their doorstep with his usual ramblings on, lol. He offers to take her to LA before he returns to Llanview after receiving a disturbing call from Dani from Llanview; both leave as Starr kisses Michael goodbye. John McBain is recalled back into the FBI and has a farewell drink with Anna, then he leaves town. Needless to say what they did to all three of their characters suck and I no longer watch as both PP & ABC screwed up royally.

WHO WOULD OF THOUGHT WE ARE THAT STUPID THAT WE WOULD BELIEVE THIS MESS PLEASE DO SOMETHING FAST BEFORE THE RATINGS FALL SO FAST IT WILL GO OFF THE AIR .THIS IS THE WORST EVER THAT GH EVER HAS DONE . GET IT TOGETHER . I COULD COME WRITE FOR YOU AND BLOW YOU GUYS OUT OF THE WATER.

I have watched General Hospital faithfully from the beginning. But of all the weird things they’ve done, bringing favorite actors from OLTL back as new (unbelievable) characters on GH was a misstep. Roger Howarth as Franco is ridiculous. ABC is wasting their talents and turning me off. First of all, it was a mistake to think that all people wanted on daytime television was another talk show. And now you’ve screwed up the one remaining Soap. There have been too many talk shows for the past few years. Who needed another one. There were plenty of folks still enjoying the Soaps. I dvr GH every day. But this new GH is not cutting it.

This whole fiasco reminds me of when the writers went off the deep end on AMC. It seems like ABC is trying to ruin GH so that they have a reason to cancel it and give it to Prospect Park. I just read yesterday that now they are going to turn “Franco” into Jason so that Kiki can be with Michael. Stupid. And they fired Kelly Sullivan! Who fires anyone who can act like she does?! I’m done. I just took the show off my Tivo and my Hulu list. There are way to many shows out there to waste my time on garbage.

This is so totally laughable and not in a good way, why would they fire Kelly Sullivan?! I loved watching her scenes and making Franco into Jason, lol-very bad joke. The Powers at GH must really think that their viewers and fans are complete idiots, I knew there was a reason I stopped watching the show. I doubt that Prospect Park would want them either as I can see why; GH has seriously sunk itself like the Titanic. Thanks for nothing Valentini!

I agree this change is very confusing for viewing purposes but why is it so hard for ppl to understand about Prospect Park owning the original OLTL chars of Todd, John and Starr? Therefore, legally those CHARS can’t be on GH anymore, whereas the ACTORS are still under contract with GH. What could GH do but give them new roles? It wasn’t just done on a whim. Personally I think it would have worked better if the new chars paralleled the old ones more closely by staying a detective and a singer who is Michael’s love interest and has a tumultuous relationship with her complex maybe evil father…oh wait. Well I’m having the hardest time with the hunky detective to nerdy doctor morph haha. Anyway, any soap viewer has to have a highly developed ability to suspend reality otherwise you’d go crazy as a bag of squirrels eventually.

I’ve been watching GH since 1979. My grandmother watched it too, it was something we had in common. I started watching OLTL when Roger joined the show, when he left I followed him to ATWT, then back to OLTL ( I never liked Trevor’s version of Todd). RH is an amazing actor, like Tony Geary (remember when he played Bill, not Luke oh GH?), but I cannot buy RH as Franco. Glad they brought Mara over from ATWT, she’s a talented actress who can hold her own against Roger, but I cannot see RC and crew ever being able to redeem Franco. Poor Roger having to play another rapist. I wish they’d brought him back as someone else. However, totally digging ME as Dr. As*hole. That was a good casting call as ME and KM have scorching chemistry.

I was so mad when OLTL and AMC were canceled. Like them more than GH. Stopped watching for a minute then checked out GH and saw that Todd, Star and John were on there. So ok I’ll watch. Then there was a vampire that looked like John? Now all of the sudden all 3 of them are someone else? Wow!!! I missed the episode when the 3 left. Did they? Or was it just all of the sudden they were aomeone else? I HATE GH now!! Super stupid! I will not watch anymore!!!! Bring back OLTL and GH!!!

This is the most annoying and confusing change since I started watching this soap 25 years ago! I loved the Todd/Starr Manning and John were great characters – Todd especially, great character! Why did they get rid of them and bring them back as these people. So confusing that I think I might stop watching. Very disappointed in the writers of GH right now.

I’m currently watching OLTL because of the Todd/Victor and it’s quite depressing the direction they went and the fact the GH(ABC) had a part in screwing it up. I’m glad that the actors still have a paying gig but I stopped long ago, they were fine as their original characters but do to legal bickering and underhanded tactics, anyway. I think after Todd’s storyline ends I may stop watching OLTL, too may unnecessary changes.